Technology and Place

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Developing qsustainableq architectural and agricultural technologies was the intent behind Blueprint Farm, an experimental agricultural project designed to benefit farm workers displaced by the industrialization of agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Yet, despite its promise, the very institutions that created Blueprint Farm terminated the project after just four years (1987-1991). In this book, Steven Moore demonstrates how the various stakeholders' competing definitions of qsustainability, q qtechnology, q and qplaceq ultimately doomed Blueprint Farm. He reconstructs the conflicting interests and goals of the founders, including Jim Hightower and the Texas Department of Agriculture, Laredo Junior College, and the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, and shows how, ironically, they unwittingly suppressed the self-determination of the very farm workers the project sought to benefit. From the instructive failure of Blueprint Farm, Moore extracts eight principles for a regenerative architecture, which he calls his qnonmodern manifesto.qThe land grant network, from behind the scenes, operated in this case as did the
makers of the electric refrigerator. Like General Electric, Kelvinator, and
Westinghouse in Ruth Cowana#39;s study, the land grant network was vastly better
financed than its ecologist competitors, ... Because these alternative technologies
were never fully developed, the aquot;problemsaquot; of the land grant network never fully
appeared.

Title

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Technology and Place

Author

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Steven A. Moore

Publisher

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University of Texas Press - 2011-01-20

ISBN-13

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